Time serves AI bots a stripped-down Markdown version of its site with embedded ads

Time magazine has begun serving AI bots a separate, simplified version of its website, distinct from what regular users see. Instead of standard HTML pages, some AI services receive compact Markdown-formatted content with embedded ad blocks. A developer from Vroni.com noticed this unusual behavior while comparing server responses with different User-Agent values. When accessed by Chrome, Safari, and Googlebot, Time returned standard HTML pages of about 303 KB, but when accessed by ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and OAI-SearchBot, it returned a stripped-down Markdown version of about 13 KB with no styling, images, or scripts, designed for quick processing by AI models. GPTBot and ChatGPT-User received a 406 error, indicating a selective approach to different types of AI bots. The Markdown version is created using Mobian's advertising platform, assigns a unique identifier to each request, and includes headers that prevent caching and track token usage via an x-mobian-tokens parameter, meaning monetization is based on tokens consumed by AI rather than page views. Content also differs: for example, AI bots see a sponsored section from Ally Bank in a 'Best Inventions of 2025' compilation, while regular users see a different ad from the Project Management Institute (PMI), and such sponsored posts are marked as such but only shown to AI bots. Time reports that on some days AI bot traffic exceeds regular user visits, while Googlebot still receives the same HTML version as humans.